Images courtesy of Lever & Shop Architects. 

The United States has always been one to do new things in a big way. In this case the concepts are not exactly new, but they are big! 

The USDA announced early last week the winners of $3 million in funding grants in support of greener, carbon friendly wood based high rise construction technology. Modern engineered Mass Timber products have made the continued development of high rise timber projects around the world possible.

Between the years 1880 -1940 there were over 300 Mass timber projects built in the "new world" centres above 6 stories, with the tallest being 9 stories. These projects have not only demonstrated the viability and longevity of these structures, but many of them have served to show the amazing beauty of these authentic marvels. Shortly after World War II, steel and concrete took over the leading rolls in construction development. Timber and many other natural materials were left in the dust believed to be old and inferior materials.

Although Cross Laminated Timber was developed in the mid 90's, the modern timber renaissance did not start until around 2005 when a series of forward thinking Architects started to develop taller timber structures. Engineered  Mass Timber products gave designers the reliability to make these redevelopments. Building codes around the world have had to be re-examined to allow the implementation of such tall timber projects, a copious body of testing has almost universally shown Mass Timber to exhibit extraordinary fire protection properties along with a slew of unique structural characteristics. These properties are only part of the side show though as one of the primary motivations for choosing wood based products in our modern era is to use renewable materials while reducing our carbon footprint. Mass timber inherently excels in both of these attributes. 

One of the two grant winning projects consists of a 12 story, mixed use building in downtown Portland, backed by the Beneficial State Bancorp. The project is supported by a motivated group of key Oregon movers who are seeking to revive Oregon's turn of the century Timber Legacy.  Lever architecture is providing the vision behind the interesting building pictures on the top left. 

ARuP and SHOP Architects have teamed up to turn new leaf over in the big apple. New York is set to see a 10 story residential development at 475 West 18th. The project focuses on a drastic reduction to building energy load as well as the goal of reaching LEED platinum. 

The next few years will surely be interesting as we see Mass Timber projects each take their own approach to a perfect system. How do you measure the success of these building systems? 
Occupation use? Carbon footprint? Aesthetic  review? Time to complete? Life-Cycle Costs? Or raw construction costs? The answer is linked to all of the above. With the right teams being assembled we are seeing the dawn of the Mass Timber Renaissance, were these projects will outrun concrete and steel alternatives in all categories. For the time being we are only limited by our dreams. 

More information HERE. 

Images curtesy: The Engineer & Ramboll blog. 

Dalston Lane is a new project in the Hackney region of London. CLT was selected as a primary building component due to its weight reduction over concrete. Poor soil conditions combined with existing underground development made CLT a perfect fit for modern, green, in-fill architecture. The building is 10 stories tall with 9 of them out of CLT.  The project will use over 3,500m^3 of European timber, locking up 2,400 tonnes of carbon while providing housing for 121 units. 

The project team consists of a set of local UK superstars in modern construction including Ramboll Engineering, Waugh Thistleton Architecture, and Regal Homes. 

The 33m tall timber complex is set to be completed by the end of 2015. How many more timber towers will we see before the end of the year? 

The Nanyang University of Technology in Singapore has developed plans for a massive wood based expansion to its facilities. Wood was chosen for renewable properties, and thermal qualities. The facility is set to include a massive sports hall with 70 m glulam spans. Combined with these recreation facilities are six 13 story on campus residence buildings. These residences will house 1,850 students and likely be made from CLT.

More info can be found here:
http://news.asiaone.com/news/singapore/ntu-goes-green-new-campus-buildings 

The final development of V3 for the UBC Brock Commons tall wood project pushes the boundaries of timber construction into new and experimental realms. This third exploration ( see V1, and V2) uses a hex grid system combined with reciprocal framing. A system of this nature presents unique challenges in terms of assembly and connection optimization. Reciprocal framing makes use of distributed load paths which can allow for smaller dimensions of the material used. Depending on the final configuration this can result in overall material savings, but more commonly the usage of smaller sizes of materials (yet overall higher volume) which can also result in cost savings. 

A basic dimension of 6 m for the hexagon arm length, or hex radius was used to allow for appropriate room sizes and for the building to fit within the lot sizing allocations. These hex grid panels are broken up into six sections of 6 m equilateral triangles. A reciprocal framed floor breaks this grid down smaller to 3 m equilateral floor panels. This size of floor panel makes the units easy to move and allows for enhanced mass production. This also gives us the option for a variety of manufacturing techniques. The first technique allows massive adaptability, but takes more install time by installing each 3 m equilateral CLT panel individually onto the reciprocal frame. The second involves using the larger 6 m equilateral grid section (comprised of four, 3 m panels). The smaller 3 m CLT panels are prefabricated along with the reciprocal beam grid and services into a larger 6 m equilateral base panel. These large base panels placed on the reciprocal beam grid system are landed in a special six way steel connector which is attached to a glulam (or LVL/ parallam) column. As a third, and likely most cost-effective option floor panels can be produced in regular manufacturing widths and installed in 12 m lengths, reducing overall crane time and manufacturing re-work. 

Due to the nature of the grid, bracing is spread out between a 3 component plane. Depending on the direction of exterior forces they are dispersed as X/Y components into the hex-grid structure. Bracing is placed in key walls arranged within the hex grid. This supplies a unique architectural challenge, yet can still produce a beautiful quality of space. There are specific challenges around the elevator core and how to fit a square unit into a distinct geometric pattern. This would be an area of ongoing analysis. A concrete service core runs up through both towers, also providing stiffness to the structure. Specially attention needs to be paid to differential height changes with moisture content in the vertical members. Although this is minimized by only using end grain there are still tolerances to be implemented. 

One of the key advantages of the reciprocal framing used in this instance is its vibration mitigation effects. The triangular based grid changes the manner in which vibration propagates throughout the structure. This has profound effects on the sound and impact insulation of the floor system. This allows us to use thinner CLT or solid wood panels and reduce the amount of topping materials. 

The structure can be wrapped in a cable stay system for enhanced seismic performance. Along this line of thought we also explored the use of a reciprocal framed shell structure or grid-shell for the facade system. New commercial applications should come out soon in light of enhanced modelling capabilities, see Reciprocal Framing Made Easy (4mb pdf).

This third exploration into the UBC Brock Commons student housing project is highly experimental in nature, and provides new concepts for tall timber projects. These types of approaches further illustrate the adaptability of timber to create limitless possibilities in structural and architectural design.